Artist Felipe Pantone's home is a 'permanent exhibition' - with its own indoor nightclub

Spanish-Argentinian contemporary artist Felipe Pantone, who never reveals his face to the public, opens the doors to his striking home 'Casa Axis' in Valencia, Spain. Originally built between 1972 and 1975 by architect Pascual Genovés and designer Antonio Segura, the property was known as the 'Revolving House' before Pantone renamed it. After a two-year renovation, the 7,000 sq m estate now includes an indoor swimming pool designed by the artist, a private tennis court, a dance club, and rooms filled with natural light. Pantone and his partner Victoria Fernández host artists from around the world at the home, which also served as a backdrop for Netflix's Black Mirror.

Rising Voices: Inside the V&A’s Landmark Exhibition Of Asian, Australian & Pacific Art

A new exhibition, 'Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia, and the Pacific,' opens this weekend at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It features over 70 works by more than 40 artists from 25 Asia Pacific countries, including sculpture, painting, photography, ceramics, and textiles, many never before exhibited outside the region. The show is presented in partnership with the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane and co-curated by Daniel Slater, the V&A's director of exhibitions.

‘Art’s Selfish’: Canada Pavilion Artist Abbas Akhavan on What Comes After Venice

Abbas Akhavan, representing Canada at the 2026 Venice Biennale, has transformed the Canada Pavilion into a greenhouse-like installation titled “Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup.” The pavilion’s wooden door has been replaced with glass, revealing a pond of pinkish water illuminated by sunlight and LED grow-lamps. Visitors encounter mossy boulders, a vintage fur coat sprayed with mist, sharpened bronze sticks, and frosted mirrors that blur the architecture. Three giant Bolivian water lilies, grown from seeds sent from Kew Gardens to Padua, will gradually fill the pond over the summer. Akhavan describes his role as a “custodian” rather than a controller, emphasizing the unpredictability of nature.

The National Gallery of Canada, commissioner of Canada's participation in the 61st International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, unveils the exhibition Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup

The National Gallery of Canada has unveiled the exhibition "Abbas Akhavan: Entre chien et loup" for the Canada Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2026. The site-specific installation reimagines the pavilion's architecture as a Wardian case, a precursor to the terrarium used to transport plants across the British Empire, featuring a custom pool with giant Victoria water lilies. The artist replaced the facade with glass panels, making the plants visible from outside, and the installation is framed by additional sculptural works. The exhibition is curated by Kim Nguyen and accompanied by a fully illustrated publication.

At the Galleries for April 23, 2026

A series of new gallery and community art exhibitions are opening across the Hamptons and Montauk. Highlights include Timothy Tibus's solo painting show "Live Forever" at The Lucore Art in Montauk, the group exhibition "Echoes of Matisse" at The Drawing Room in East Hampton, Ann Pibal's solo show at Halsey McKay Gallery, and a one-week solo exhibition for Marcie Honerkamp at the Springs Community Library.

Exhibition | Megan Jenkinson, 'Secateur / Sequitur' at Two Rooms, Auckland, New Zealand

Artist Megan Jenkinson presents her latest body of work, 'Secateur / Sequitur', at Two Rooms in Auckland. The exhibition features intricate photocollages that blend botanical elements with man-made materials like wire, drawing inspiration from classical philosophy and the Japanese art of ikebana. Jenkinson’s meticulously structured compositions explore the tension between the natural world and human systems of order.

Venice exhibition of US artist Hernan Bas will tackle issue of mass tourism

American artist Hernan Bas is set to debut a major new series of over 30 paintings titled "The Visitors" at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice. The immersive installation, created in part during a residency in the city, satirizes the absurdity of global mass tourism, from iconic clichés like the Mona Lisa to "dark tourism" sites such as Chernobyl. The works depict a procession of North American and European youths performing for cameras and navigating tourist traps with a mix of naiveté and arrogance.

In a risk-averse market, Paris Photo offers diversity

Paris Photo returns to the Grand Palais for its 28th edition, featuring 220 exhibitors from 33 countries, including 178 galleries and 42 publishers. The fair opens amid a risk-averse market where dealers report slower acquisitions, increased production costs, and reduced collector risk-taking, yet attendance reached 81,000 in 2024. Notable trends include a resurgence of Japanese galleries after a five-year absence, strong Latin American presentations from Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Santiago, and Mexico City, and a rise in women artists to 39% of practitioners, up from 20% in 2018. Highlights include MEM's exhibition of the August 6 Hiroshima Day student photography project and Claudia Andujar's Yanomami works shown by Galeria Vermelho.

Continue the Frieze London buzz: these are the best new gallery openings in the UK to visit now

The article highlights five new or relocated gallery openings across the UK, from London to rural Wiltshire, that are generating buzz alongside the Frieze London art fair. These include Brink in Notting Hill, which pairs architecture with art in a former temperance hall; Huxley-Parlour's new rural outpost in the North Wessex Downs; Monument, an archival objects gallery expanding in Leyton; 3812 Gallery relocating to The Whiteley in Queensway with a focus on Chinese contemporary art; and Cobogó Gallery's first physical London space in Chelsea Harbour, specializing in Brazilian design.

Victoria Miro gallery launches sophisticated digital platform to put past and present exhibitions online

Victoria Miro gallery has launched a new digital platform called Live / Archive, which uses 3D modeling, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) to present past and current exhibitions online. The platform, powered by the Vortic software developed by Oliver Miro, initially features 72 archived shows dating back to 2019, including Grayson Perry's "Super Rich Interior Decoration." The launch coincides with the gallery's 40th anniversary, and the platform allows artists like Chantal Joffe to revisit and plan exhibitions virtually.

GRIMM Grows Across London with New St James’s Gallery Opening This Autumn

GRIMM, the international gallery founded in 2005, will open a new space in London's St James's district this autumn, timed to Frieze Week. The gallery will occupy the ground and lower floors of a historic late Victorian building at 43a Duke Street, expanding from its current Mayfair location at 2 Bourdon Street. The inaugural exhibition will feature new paintings by German artist Matthias Weischer. Founder Jörg Grimm described the move as a logical progression following the gallery's establishment in London in 2022.

A hundred years on, Cork Street is the beating heart of London’s art scene once more

Cork Street in London's Mayfair district, a historic hub for commercial art, is celebrating its centenary with a collaborative group show involving 15 galleries. The exhibition is inspired by a controversial 1938 Jean Cocteau work, "La peur donnant des ailes au courage," which was deemed obscene by British authorities and only shown in a back office at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, after her petitions. Participating galleries include Stephen Friedman Gallery, Alon Zakaim Fine Art, and Goodman Gallery, with works by artists like Caroline Coon, Shirin Neshat, and others, curated by Tarini Malik.

An expansive monograph of Celia Paul paints a portrait of a single-minded, singular artist

A new monograph on Indian-born British painter Celia Paul (b. 1959) presents an expansive survey of her career, featuring over 500 color reproductions and essays by Hilton Als, Clare Carlisle, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Edmund de Waal, and Rowan Williams, alongside contributions from the artist herself. The book traces Paul's trajectory from her training at the Slade School of Fine Art and her decade-long relationship with Lucian Freud to her recent solo exhibition *Colony of Ghosts* at Victoria Miro in London, positioning her as a singular figure distinct from the shadow of Freud and the School of London painters.

‘A true champion of artists’: Victoria Miro's artists celebrate gallery's 40th anniversary

Victoria Miro opened her eponymous gallery on Cork Street in London in December 1985, at a time when the punk collective The Grey Organisation was protesting the conservative art establishment. To mark the gallery's 40th anniversary, Miro is hosting an exhibition of works by all her artists at her 17,000 sq. ft space in Hoxton, with 23 of them creating new works specifically for the show, including Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Flora Yukhnovich, Elmgreen & Dragset, Chris Ofili, Chantal Joffe, Grayson Perry, and Celia Paul. The article features heartfelt tributes from artists like Isaac Julien, who calls Miro 'a true champion of artists,' and Joffe, who describes the gallery as family.

Frank Auerbach’s Berlin homecoming, human remains and museums, Ian Hamilton Finlay’s ‘Republic’—podcast

This podcast episode covers three major art-world stories. First, the late artist Frank Auerbach receives his first-ever Berlin exhibition at Galerie Michael Werner, decades after fleeing the city as a Jewish refugee in 1939. Second, curator and author Dan Hicks discusses his new book *Every Monument Must Fall*, which examines the origins of contemporary debates around colonialism, art, and heritage, focusing on the acquisition and display of human remains in museums. Third, the episode highlights the centenary of artist Ian Hamilton Finlay with a look at his work *Republic* (1995) and a series of international exhibitions celebrating his legacy.

Why the inaugural Art Week Riyadh was a fair in everything but name

The inaugural Art Week Riyadh (AWR), organized by Saudi Arabia's Visual Arts Commission, took place from April 6-13 in the Jax district of Diriyah. Though officially billed as a non-commercial curated exhibition, the event functioned much like an art fair, with 32 galleries displaying available works, price lists visible on stands, and sales conducted throughout the week. The main exhibition, titled "At The Edge," was curated by Vittoria Matarrese with associate curators Basma Harasani and Victoria Gandit Lelandais, featuring galleries from Saudi Arabia and the wider region. Standout presentations included works by Ayesha Sultana, Mohamed Bourouissa, Mohammed Al Resayes, and Miramar Al Nayyar, alongside a moving image section and a satellite program of open studios and gallery shows.

How the State Supports Provenance Research

Comment l’État soutient la recherche de provenance

The French Ministry of Culture has created two specialized missions to assist museums in researching the provenance of their collections, addressing looted artworks, human remains, colonial acquisitions, and illicit trafficking. The Mission for Research and Restitution of Looted Cultural Property (M2RS), established in 2019, focuses on Nazi-era spoliations (1933-1945) with a budget of €220,000 annually, while the newer Mission "Provenance," launched in 2024 under curator Catherine Chevillot, covers human remains, colonial-era objects, and illicit goods with a €450,000 budget. These missions provide expertise, funding, and coordination with institutions like the Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation (CIVS), though most museums still only initiate provenance checks during acquisitions or donations.

Victoria & Albert Museum yields to Chinese censorship

Le Victoria & Albert Museum cède à la censure chinoise

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London removed a map and other content from its exhibition catalogues after its Chinese printer, C&C Offset Printing, flagged them as unacceptable to Chinese censors. The map, showing 1930s British Empire trade routes, was rejected by China's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) because it included Chinese territory and borders, requiring the use of state-approved maps. The museum also previously removed a map and a photograph of Vladimir Lenin from a 2021 Fabergé exhibition catalogue.

Masha Foya’s Airy Illustrations Embrace the Universality of Emotions

Kyiv-based illustrator Masha Foya has released a new series of dreamlike works that blend human emotion with the natural world. Her illustrations often feature surreal architectural and organic elements, such as foliage tunnels forming into hands or planes flying through bird-shaped apertures, to represent the boundlessness of the human imagination. The collection includes a mix of personal explorations and high-profile commissions for international publications.

May First Friday 2026: 20+ events, exhibition openings in Lancaster city this Friday

Lancaster city's May First Friday 2026 features over 20 events, including exhibition openings, concerts, and performances. Highlights include a new exhibition 'Hybrids' by artist Jeremy Waak at Curio Gallery & Creative Supply, the Demuth Museum's 'Demuth Invitational: American Reflections' tied to the U.S. 250th anniversary, and the Lancaster Living Poetry Museum II with performers embodying poets at venues like the Lancaster Public Library and Lancaster Art Vault. Other offerings include salsa dancing at Binns Park, works by York County painters at The Framing Concept, and a show inspired by Yayoi Kusama at Friendship Heart Gallery + Market.

Elisabetta Sirani, de Bologne à Melbourne

The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne has acquired a painting by the 17th-century Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani. The work, a private devotional piece, depicts the infant Jesus holding a swallow, a symbol of Resurrection in Christian iconography. The acquisition adds a significant example of Sirani's work to the museum's collection.

art charles porch instagram art collecting

Charles Porch, VP of Global Partnerships for Instagram, moved from Venice Beach to a historic West Village brownstone in 2020. He enlisted sculptor-turned-designer Jed Lind to renovate the property, blending vintage furnishings with contemporary artworks collected from emerging artists. The home features pieces by Pierre Augustin Rose, Michael O’Connell, and artworks by Whitney Bedford, Robert Natkin, and Brett Cody Rogers. Porch later married Robert Denning, a philanthropist on the Met’s Board of Trustees, and the couple has since moved to a Chelsea space, combining their collections.

Future home of the Vancouver Art Gallery turned back into parking lot

Crews have begun filling in the excavation work at the future home of the Vancouver Art Gallery at West Georgia and Cambie, turning the site into a parking lot operated by Easy Park. The project, originally set to open in 2028, has been scaled back after costs rose from $400 million to $600 million, and $60 million had already been spent on planning and pre-construction. The gallery has appointed new architects—Chipewyan architect Alfred Waugh of Formline Architecture and Bruce Kuwabara of Toronto-based KPMB—to lead a redesigned, smaller-scale project, effectively starting from scratch.

Abbas Akhavan Transforms the Canada Pavilion Into a Greenhouse, Daring Viewers to Leave Behind Their Preconceptions

Artist Abbas Akhavan has transformed the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale into a functioning greenhouse for his exhibition "Entre chien et loup." The pavilion now houses a 6,000-gallon pool containing giant Victoria water lilies, with modifications including grow lights, water misters, a new ventilation system, and structural reinforcements to support the 25-ton water tank. The installation evokes Victorian-era Wardian cases and London's Crystal Palace, but Akhavan emphasizes that his interest in the lilies began intuitively, not as a commentary on colonialism or empire. The project, developed with curator Kim Nguyen, involved collaboration with Kew Gardens and the Orto Botanico di Padova to cultivate the plants, and the outcome remains uncertain as the lilies may thrive or wither over the exhibition's six-month run.

Nymphs, mermaids and rosy cherubs: mansion filled with hidden wall paintings makes Victorian Society’s endangered buildings list

A derelict mansion called Parndon Hall, located within the grounds of Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, has been named to the Victorian Society’s annual list of the top ten at-risk buildings in England and Wales. The house, built in 1867, contains a hidden trove of wall paintings by the almost-forgotten Victorian artist Elizabeth Arkwright, who covered walls, ceilings, and doors with nymphs, mermaids, and cherubs—many still concealed under Edwardian whitewash. The building has been used for storage and has sat unoccupied since flood repairs in 2024.

dante gabriel rossetti christina portrait revealed

A newly discovered 1877 chalk portrait of the poet Christina Rossetti by her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite master Dante Gabriel Rossetti, has been unveiled at Wightwick Manor. The drawing, recently acquired by the National Trust, serves as the centerpiece for the exhibition "The Rossettis – Siblings and Spouses." Created during a period of shared family mourning following the death of their sister Maria, the work departs from Rossetti’s typical idealized style to offer a somber, realistic depiction of grief and resilience.

victoria helena artist money matters financial literacy artists

Victoria Helena, an artist and former CFO, is launching Artist Money Matters, a financial consultancy designed specifically for artists. The service aims to provide independent, informed support to artists navigating a volatile and opaque art economy, addressing common issues like contract clarity, payment terms, and intellectual property.

empress sisi of austria portrait

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837–1898), known as Princess Sisi, has re-entered the cultural spotlight after eagle-eyed historians noticed a striking similarity between Franz Xaver Winterhalter's informal portrait of the Empress with her hair down and a bridal scene in Guillermo del Toro's new film *Frankenstein*, where actress Mia Goth appears with flowing auburn locks. The comparison, shared widely on social media by historian Rachael Gibson and others, gave Winterhalter's 19th-century portrait a new viral moment, sparking renewed interest in Sisi's life and the role of hair in Victorian Europe.

dorset museum sherborne almshouse triptych

The Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in England has launched a fundraising campaign to acquire a rare 15th-century Netherlandish altarpiece, known as *The Master of the Sherborne Almshouse Triptych*, valued at up to £3.5 million ($4.6 million). The work is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in an Old Master evening sale next month, and the museum aims to prevent it from entering a private collection or being exported. The triptych, which depicts five healings of Jesus Christ, was hidden during periods of iconoclastic destruction and rediscovered in St. John’s Almshouse in Sherborne in the 19th century; it has only left the site twice, for exhibitions at the Royal Academy in 1923 and the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2003.

hermes birkin bag sale sothebys

The original Le Birkin handbag, crafted by Hermès in 1985 for actress and singer Jane Birkin, sold for €8.5 million ($10 million) at Sotheby's Paris on July 10. The bag, which shows visible wear from decades of use, sparked a 10-minute bidding war among nine buyers and was purchased by a private collector from Japan. It broke records as the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction and the highest-selling fashion item in Europe.